China CITIC Bank's Q3 net profit up 7.78%

Oct. 27, 2009 (China Knowledge) - China CITIC Bank Corp<601998><0998>, the listed banking unit of the nation's largest investment enterprise, CITIC Group, said yesterday that its net profit climbed 7.78% year on year to RMB 4.35 billion in the third quarter of this year.

In the first three quarters of this year, the bank earned RMB 11.4 billion in net profit, 8.48% less than in the same period of last year, said the bank in a statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The decline was 7.52 percentage points less than that in the first half.

The Beijing-based lender attributed the increase in net profit for the third quarter to a rebound in net interest margin, which had risen to 2.61% at the end of September.

Net interest income in the third quarter was RMB 9.19 billion, down 2.31% year on year, but up 22.39% compared with that in the first half of this year.

As of the end of September, the lender's loan balance had surged 49.06% from the end of last year to RMB 991.16 billion.

The bank's non-performing loan ratio fell 0.03 percentage points from the end of June to 0.96% at the end of September, while its provision coverage ratio rose to 159.59% from 150.05%.

However, in the third quarter, the bank's capital adequacy ratio fell 3.08 percentage points to 11.24% and its core capital adequacy ratio fell 2.48 percentage points to 9.84%.